Other worlds are possible

I5

The Zapatistas offered a vision that other worlds were still possible. That a radical struggle against global capitalism could be engaged in that people could come together in a spirit of affinity and solidarity and actually not try and just dominate and control each other with a singular blueprint of the world or what the world could be. And I found that all very inspiring. And the fact that it was communicated through parables, through myth, through allegory, through poetry, through symbolic demonstration as much as through an armed uprising I found really powerful.

Care and organizing

I21

I think it's important to nurture people in the political movements that are important to me. So the form is as important as the content. So how we organize, and how we talk to each other, and how we behave is extremely important….a person I truly respec[t] once said to me that [the]...only...criteria for [being] progressive [is] they had to be interested in ideas and care about people and if they didn't have one or the other they were not progressive. So there are a lot of people in our progressive movements who either don't care about people or don't care about ideas...that's what I mean… [by] the converging of the social and the moral.

Winning right now

I14

So, short term what would winning mean to me? I would like to see the Canada health act pass into legislation right now. I'd like to see [the former] NDP government pushed on a variety of different fronts from below to keep it to the minimum promises it made and I'd like to see the beginnings of building some kind of mass progressive movement here in Nova Scotia. That to me would be the short term win.

Solidarity and change

I25

I think the first...guiding principle when you're talking about pathways to social change is that there's not any one that's better than the others and that you constantly need to be re-evaluating which one you're on at the time because...what works in one point in time might not work in another. But I think the number one way to do it is to really join forces and have solidarity amongst different environmental, social activists, human rights, all these groups...really need to have a strong sense of community and a strong sense of solidarity so that they can mobilize.

Women, power, and winning

I26

It would be about women recognizing power, women understanding that they hold that power, and that they can exercise that power, and that exercising that power can change society, can change the individual, can change the family, can change the community, can change the society. And that would look not only like women recognizing and exercising that power but the society...recognizing that that power is valid.

Marginality and denial

I2

More and more I see an obsession with state repression and class power [as an avoidance tactic].....If you're framing those themes as separate [from] race and gender and sexuality, what's up?...It's either an avoidance or a direct minimization of those experiences which is appalling and no wonder you're marginal because you're denying the reality of the majority of people.

Airing our differences

I28

...polemicizing can be a danger and people don't talk, or groups don't talk, to each other. I agree that to some extent it's not helpful. To some extent it is. To give people a chance to really explicate the intricacies of what they model for a better society, I mean to some extent that's good. Let's hear that.

Practicing solidarity

I1

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was a debate around mass organizing versus propaganda of the deed and that was the way it was framed….I recall those debates throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s and I recall really sharply [that] the spokescouncil meetings leading up to the WTO in Seattle gathered different communities from the Pacific North-West, from Washington state, or Oregon, or BC and [they advanced] very different approaches. By that time, we had developed a fair amount of respect for each other...[and] many of those debates were had in pretty fraternal ways and played out better than maybe they have most recently.

Social and personal change

I15

...I...realized that while I could identify what was wrong...with certain actions that promoted hate against other individuals, I didn't see how I was part of that system….It was the first time that I realized that it wasn't just about me fighting other people, it was also about me changing myself.

Capitalism, motivation, and social reproduction

I11

I think it's really foolish to think that if the competition of capitalism was taken away or if the goal of money were taken away that people wouldn't do things…[that] people would just sit around. No, people will maintain roads if they’re important roads, and maintain the public systems that they use or whatever, or grow food, but we won't do things like build $6 000 000 passing lanes in spots we don't need them...